As wireless networks have become less expensive and less complicated to implement, such networks have become increasingly common in home and work environments. While previous implementations of wireless network technology primarily focused on enabling computing platforms such as personal computers to communicate with one another, improvements in signal strength, network security, and device power usage have led to a variety of new applications for wireless technology. For example, household items such as appliances, utility meters, security systems, or heating and air conditioning systems may be network-enabled for communication with monitoring and management systems. Many of these devices may feature battery powered wireless network transmitters in order to eliminate the need for the transmitter to be coupled to a power distribution system (e.g., a wall outlet).
Although traditional wireless network protocols allow for devices to join a network and send and receive data, such protocols may not be ideal for devices that wish to minimize power consumption and maximize range. For example, in common wireless protocols such as 802.11g and 802.11n, devices that are members of a network are, in practice, always on if there is a data session ongoing, ready to send or receive data. Attempting to use such a networking protocol with a certain types of wireless devices, such as battery operated transmitters, transmitters which may have limited access to power supplies, or sensor devices or smart meters which may have operational lifetime of years, may quickly drain the battery, rendering the device inoperable.
Furthermore, as the transmission range of these networks increases, the likelihood of overlapping networks increases due to the increased area that may be covered by any given transmitter. In scenarios where multiple networks are present in the same frequency spectrum, several communications between an access point and a wireless station may be required to avoid contention of the channel and collisions of transmissions. These communications may be inefficient, and cause the wireless station to transmit and receive redundant and/or superfluous data in order to negotiate the channel selection process.